The Way I Am
by StarKisses
Summary: Maria Lily Potter is different then all the other students at Hogwarts. Very different. But can she learn to deal with these differences? Or will her secrets be exposed to the entire school? Full of friendships,lies, secrets, dark magic and more.
1. Prologe

"MARIA!" Harry Potter's loud booming voice echoed down the hallway.

A young girl, probably around the age of two, stuck her head out of a  
door on the far right side of the hall way, her long red hair fell  
unevenly around her shoulders.

"Yes, Daddy?" She sounded confused, unaware of why her father was being  
so loud.

Harry walked towards her and knelled so he was at eye level with her,  
and dropped his voice to a playful whisper.

"Why are you in the closet?" He asked her calmly, even though she had  
just scared the life out of him. There is nothing like waking up and not  
being able to find your daughter.

"I was hiding, daddy." Maria was rocking side to side, anybody who had  
looked in on the scene, could have mistaken her to be drunk, or more  
likely, pushed off balance.

"What were you hiding from?"

Most people would think that this was all just a game that the little  
girl was playing, her parents knew better. Maria has had visions since  
she was very young, possible even before she was able to speak of them.  
As a baby, she tossed and turned and slept restlessly, often screaming  
and crying in her dreams. As she got older, she was able to tell her  
parents of the dreams, and they weren't always dreams either. Sometimes,  
she would just blank out, her brown eyes rolling backwards, and her face  
growing pale. Nobody knew why she had these visions, and nothing anybody  
did stopped them. They all seemed to become real pretty accurately, and  
that's what worried Harry the most.

"Him." Maria answered softly. 'Him' was what she called the man she had  
recently been seeing in her visions. She couldn't describe him very  
well, and he seemed to scare her.

"What did he want?" Harry wanted to track down this guy who was  
torturing his daughter and set him straight. Unfortunately, he didn't  
have enough information to do this yet.

"I don't know. He was looking for a stick, like the ones you and mummy  
have. I told him I didn't have one. And he said that's too bad. Then he  
left." She was twisting her hair around her finger, her eyes misty and  
distant.

"That's all he wanted?"

"Yep!"

Harry blinked, looking at Maria, a spitting image of her mother.... then  
her remembered. Her mother! She was going to back any minute now, and  
she couldn't find Maria in a closet. She thought that things were  
finally getting better. "Come on Maria. Dinner's almost ready."

He took her hand and led her out of the closet and into the large  
bathroom across the hall. He brushed through her hair and tied it up in  
a loss ponytail. He wiped her hands and face with a damp cloth and then  
sent her down the hall into the kitchen just as the front door opened,  
marking the rival of her mum and his wife.

"MUMMY!" Maria screeched and flung herself into her mother's arms.

Ginny laughed and bent down to hug her daughter close.

"Hi Maria. Your you good today?"

Maria started rocking again, but this time out of impatience. "Yes."

"Good!" Ginny kissed her cheek lightly and stood up, looking around the  
room. "Where's daddy?"

Maria pointed to the hall where Harry had just appeared. 'There he is!"  
She answered before taking off into the living room and jumping on the  
couch.

Ginny walked over to her husband, who kissed her softly. "Anything  
eventful happen while I was gone?"

Harry shook his head. He didn't want to worry Ginny with Maria's  
visions. "Nope. Maria decided she wants a cat though."

"Then why not get her one?" Ginny laughed.

"And have her decide she wants a dog two weeks later?" He raised an  
eyebrow; he really didn't want a cat that much.

"Then we'll see if we can borrow Hermione's."

"Do really think we should?" Harry didn't think so, but after all, he  
would leave the final decision to Ginny and Maria.

"Yes, I think we should." She had made up her mind. "I'll send an owl to  
Hermione tonight."

"Poor cat." Ginny laughed, Harry smiled, and that was the end of it.

After dinner, Ginny wrestled a fighting Maria into bed while Harry  
cleaned up the kitchen. As Harry's job was a lot easier, he finished  
before his wife and ended up helping her get his protesting daughter to  
sleep. When the task was finally done, they retreated back to the room,  
exhausted. Harry slipped off his shirt and jeans and crawled into bed.  
Ginny emerged from the bathroom five minutes later. Her fierce red her  
falling in loss curls around her shoulders, and a black dress hung from  
her skin; Harry about fell out of their four-poster when he saw her.

"Is there something wrong?" She tilted her head, looking innocently  
confused.

Harry pulled her onto the bed and kissed her. "Of course not!"

And as she fell asleep beside him, and he held onto her, he couldn't  
help but felling as though he was doing something horribly wrong hiding  
Maria's vision from her. He eventually fell into a restless sleep, only  
to be waken by Maria's high-pitched screaming a mere two hours later.


	2. A Drawing From the Past

Eleven year old Maria Lily Potter sat at the kitchen table, doodling on a piece of parchment, humming happily. She wasn't sure exactly what she was drawing, but she didn't think it mattered. The man she was tracing out with the quill was tall and thin, draped in a cloak. His eyes reminded her of snake eyes, and his lips very thin. In his bony fingers of his right hand, he held a long, slender piece of wood; unmistakable as a wand. Color flooded into the picture, but it didn't add much to it. The eyes were red, the skin white, his lips only half a shade darker than his face, his wand deep brown, and the cloak deep black.

Maria stared confusingly at the picture she had drawn for a minute, then quickly stashed it out of site as her mother entered the kitchen.

"Oh, hello dear." Ginny said, looking up from the sink when Maria's chair scrapped the floor as she went to stand.

"Ello mum."

Ginny stared at her daughter's troubled face for a minute, and Maria stared back. "Is there something bothering you love?"

"No mum, I'm fine." She wasn't lying exactly. Yes the drawing had startled her, but that was all. Most of her artwork did that. The man she had drawn was probably just yet another person from her dreams. But she knew from experience that bringing up her dream/picture relations would just worry her mother; so she kept quite.

"Any new dreams lately?" Ginny had turned back to the sink, cutting carrots into a bowl.  
She sighed. "No mum." Once again, it wasn't a lie, exactly. They weren't new, just the same one, repeating over and over again. "Er, well I'm going to head upstairs and start packing."

"Ok. Wait, what's that behind your back?"

"Nothing."

"Oh really?" Maria lied like her father; not very well.

"Yeah."

"Then let me see it."

Maria held out the parchment, blank side facing her mum. "See?"

Ginny looked at it for a minute, as though trying to see through it. But she found no reason that there was anything wrong with it. "Ok. Off you go then. Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes."

"K." She called back down the stairs she was already climbing two at a time. That had been way to close for comfort.

Once in her room, she shut the door and slipped down behind it. Sighing heavily, she took another look at the picture. She still didn't understand who the guy was and why she drew him. She couldn't remember him from any of her dreams and she was certain that she had never met him before. Maria stood up and walked over to a small wooden desk and roughly opened the top drawer. Reaching in, she pulled out a large vanilla envelope and opened it. She pushed the picture in and sealed it again then flipped it over and set it on the desk. Picking up one of the many quills laying around the room, she wrote the number 13 and then "Strange Man. New.". Stuffing the envelope back in the drawer, her eyes glazed over.

"Maria." A male voice whispered behind her. She turned her head sharply and looked around the room; no one. She closed the drawer and laid down on her bed. The voice called again, "Maria."

"What?" She snapped, vaguely annoyed.

"Hello deary..." The rest of what the voice was saying was cut off by her mother's shouting that dinner was done.

* * *

"Sweetheart, is there something wrong?" Ginny asked her daughter as the sat at the table. "No mum.  
I'm fine."

"Harry, look at her."

Harry looked. "So?"

"Look at her eyes."

"What's wrong with...." Harry trailed off.

"What? Why are you guys staring at me like that?" Maria didn't like it when her parents wouldn't explain why they looked so concerned.

Harry was the first to speak. "Have you been having your visions again Maria?" He looked at her glossy, distant eyes.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"What about that picture you were drawing earlier?" Ginny added.

"What about it?"

Harry looked confused and worried. "What picture?" Maria shrugged.

"She was drawing a picture earlier. It resembled Voldemort."

"Oh dear." Was Harry's only response, though his face said much more.

"Maria looked livid. "What are you talking about? Who's Voldemort? It was just a drawing! It doesn't mean anything!"

Harry looked at his wife, Maria could not see his face, Ginny nodded. He looked back to his daughter, "We have to go."

"What? Go where?" But Harry didn't answer her. He grabbed her hand and there was a small pop as he apparated out of his kitchen.

Ginny put her head in her hands and sighed deeply. _Here we go again_.


	3. Whispers

Maria groaned and slowly opened her eyes. The room she looked into was as dark as night, though she was sure it had to be after noon. Everything ached. And she wasn't sure why. She struggled to sit up in the bed, but she heard hushed, rushed voices growing closer to her door, she lay still and shut her eyes yet again.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure."

"Then why did you bring her here?"

"She keeps...drawing things..." Maria now recognized the voice as her fathers, but was still unsure of the other man. She listened harder still.

"Harry, drawing is a perfectly normal things for children to do."

"It's not the drawing that bothers me. It's what she's drawing."

"What is it?" Concern filled the man's voice.

"She draws thing.... things from the past."

"But she couldn't possible know..."

"I know that, and you know that. But that doesn't explain how she does it."

"What is she drawing?" Maria wrinkled her nose. This man was asking way to many questions about her for her liking.

"Well last week it was Albus."

"But surely she knows what he looks like. From pictures."

"Well yes. But it's the amount of detail she puts into them. She would to have seen them to get this great of detail."

"And that is why you have brought her here?"

"I'm concerned, and so is her mother."

"Because of her drawing Albus?"

"No. Not so much him." Harry's voice grew soft, back to a whisper and Maria had to strain to hear him.  
"It's what she's gone and drawn tonight."

The man made no comment.

"She's drawn Voldemort."

The man did not answer right away, and Maria wondered why. This Voldemort guy, yeah he had been really powerful in his time, but he was dead. Her father had killed him. Her mother had seen it, and Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, Grandma and Grandpa Weasly, and so many other people. He was dead. Wasn't he?

When the man finally spoke, his voice was shaking.

"Oh, is that all? She must have seen a picture of him as well…"

"No." Harry stopped him. "She doesn't draw pictures she sees. We had her try that; they look like a giant drew them." Maria, who did not like that comment, snarled.

"Well, maybe she doesn't like to be watched." The man offered.

"That's not it either. She draws just fine watched. But if you try to have her copy a picture, she can't do it."

"I really don't think you have anything to worry about Harry."

"Her visions." Harry added quickly. "She's still having them."

Maria blinked. How did he know this? And who else knew of them other then he family? Who and what were her parents telling people about her?

"Really?" Harry seemed to have gotten the man's attention back. "What is she seeing?"

"I don't know. She won't tell us, Ginny and I. But it's the look in her eye that you can tell. She's not all there. Her eyes mist over and get a glossy, distant look. She seems to have to think over everything thats said to her and everything she says longer than she normally would. Her voice is hushed."

Harry sighed. He didn't seem to want to admit there was something wrong with his daughter, his Maria. But he must, it was for her own good.

"She's been...screaming, in her sleep. I sit and watch her some nights, after putting a muffling charm over her room so the neighbors can't hear her cries for help and screams of pain. I'm reminded of when she was put a year old; when her crying had woken a muggle neighbor next door, a sweet young lady in her mid twenty's. She came over to check that everything was alright, we reassured her, showing her Maria, told her she wasn't feeling well, and had a fever. She left, but after that we started using the charm."

Harry stopped and Maria thought hard about what he had said. Did she really cry that much in her sleep that they had to place a charm over her room at night? Had he heard her talking to herself earlier? But the question that bothered her the most was where was she?

"Then today," Harry went on. "I was walking down the hall on the upstairs level and as I passed the room, I heard her talking; questioning someone who was not there. She's been doing that a lot. Talking to voices no one else can hear."

Maria gasped. Was it possible that no one else heard them? Could it be that she, Maria Lily Potter, was going crazy.

Then the man spoke again, "I'm sure it's nothing to be of any concern Harry. But I'll take a look at her none the less."

Maria didn't like that. The idea of some strange man taking a look at her while she was supposedly sleeping, made her shiver, even if her dad was going to be in the room.  
The door opened and she shut her eyes tight, and remained limp as the men entered the room and shut the door.

* * *

"Well," The man turned to Harry. "There is nothing physically or magically wrong with her. No curses, charms, or jinxes have been cast on her. And there are no bruises, cuts, or marks to suspect foal play from anyone."

Harry sighed in relief.

"Then will it be safe to send her to Hogwarts?" He asked nervously.

"Yes, I would believe so."

"Even with the bad nights?"

The man walked over to a large chest that sat in one corner of the room, opening it, he pulled out a tall, round bottle full of a dark green liquid.

"Have her take a sip of this each night before bed, and she should sleep without a sound."

Harry took the bottle from the man. "Thank you so much. How much?"

The man waved off the cost with a thin hand. "Let me know if she has any farther troubles."

"Oh we will." Harry answered honestly, though he hoped he wouldn't have to.

"Oh, and Harry?"

"Yes?"

"I wouldn't mention this to anyone but the staff at Hogwarts. People, even the magic folk, don't always do well with people who are...well...different. I would advise her to do the same."

"Understood."

"Very good." The man sighed. "Well we should move her till she wakes up. I'm not sure how long that spell I put her under will take to fade."

"It shouldn't take too much longer. She normally shakes things like that off well."

"I really didn't want to do it. But she was putting up such a fight...I really didn't see any other option to keep her from hurting herself.

"Don't worry about it. I should have put her under before coming. She isn't too keen on hospitals, I had forgotten that."

Then Maria remembered. Everything came back to her. She was at St. Mungo's; all because of a picture.

At this moment in time, Maria hated her life.


	4. First Day Madness

"Maria!"

Maria groaned and rolled over onto her stomach, burying her head into her pillow.

"Maria!" Her mother was calling her so loud, that Maria could have sworn that the Johnson's down at the end of the street would be able to here her.

"What?" She mumbled, even though nobody could hear her.

At that moment, Ginny slammed open Maria's bedroom down with a loud boom and started yelling at the top of her lungs.

"MARIA LILY POTTER! WAKE UP NOW YOUNG LADY! YOU ARE RUNNING SO LATE!!"

Maria sat up quickly, nearly falling out of bed in the process.

She blinked at her mother for a moment, clearly having forgotten what she was late for. Then she remembered. Hogwarts! The train!

She looked at her clock on her nightstand as she scampered out of bed; falling on her face because she failed to notice that her foot was caught in the blankets. It was 10:36. She hadn't missed it, yet, but they lived over an hour away from the Platform; she was going to.

"Don't just stand there! Your father is going to use side-along apparation. But you need to hurry and get dressed." Ginny was flustered. This is just the day that Maria decides to sleep so deep that she can't hear her mother's and father's repeated attempts to wake her.

"HURRY CHILD!!"

Maria jumped two feet at started rushing around her room, swearing that there was something she was forgetting.

After 3 minutes, she gave up and headed towards the stairs empty handed; her trunk had already brought down. She was hoping down the stairs two at a time humming an unfamiliar song, and just reached the bottom when he mother appeared in front of her looking livid.

"WHERE IN HELL ARE YOU'RE SHOES?"

Maria looked down at her feet and wiggled her toes; definitely bare. She giggled.

"So that's what I was forgetting. Oops."

"OOPS? HOW IS THAT OOPS?! THEIR SHOES FOR CHRISTS SAKE! HOW DO YOU FORGET GOD DAMN SHOES?!"

But by the time poor Ginny could finish this statement, Maria ran up the stairs, into her room, reached under her bed, found her shoes, and pulled them on her feet (leaving them untied), and started to run back down the stairs. But she could hear every word that her mother screamed, as she was certain the entire street could.

"See, I got them." Maria stuck her foot in the air and pointed her toes.

"GO!" Ginny pointed towards the door and Maria hurried out of it in fear of her mother's wrath.

Harry grabbed her hand as soon as his daughter got within arms reach, Ginny yelled "bye love you" in a slightly softer voice, and then they were swallowed by darkness as Harry apparated them to Kings Cross Station.

Ginny slummed against the doorway and sighed deeply as a young woman in late 20's appeared in the yard from next door.

"First day of school?"

Ginny could only nod in reply. The woman smiled sympathizing and nodded.

She put her hand on Ginny's shoulder and said, "Come on. Hot tea and pastries do wonders for first day stress."

And that is what saved her from Maria's first day of school. But who was going to save Maria?


	5. Humiliation on the Hogwarts Express

"Go!" Harry pushed his daughter onto the train.

They had just barley made it to Platform 9 and 3/4 before the Hogwarts Express left; in fact, two minutes before. Harry was in a panicked rush to get Maria on the train; after all, he did know what it was like to miss it. That experience need not be repeated. Maria, on the other hand, seemed to be doing everything she could to keep from getting on it.

First, she "tripped" over her untied shoelaces. Then she dropped her bags on "accident". Then she tried to start an argument saying she had "forgotten" her sketch book and they needed to go back and get it; even after her father said that was not important for school, and after Maria looked like she was going to cry, said they could send it to her later. But the thing that really made it obvious that she didn't want to go, was when Harry had to push, and pull, her up the steps into the train and then push her back in when she tried to jump off and run back through the barrier.

"Why - won't - you - get - on - the - blasted - train?" Harry gasped while using all his strength to hold back his resisting 11 year-old daughter; without hurting her.

"B-because p-people won't l-like m-me!" She sobbed.

"That's never bothered you before."

"B-but they w-were m-muggles!"

Harry sighed and put one hand to his forehead while still holding Maria back with the other. "Just get on the train child, and stay there till you get to school."

"But I don't want to!" She shouted, forgetting to stutter.

"This isn't an option! Now go!" He yelled at her, shoving her through the doorway and then slamming the outside door shut in her face.

"Fine!" She yelled back though the door and hit it with the side of her fist.

She began to walk to the complete opposite side of the train from where her father was, sobbing and cursing under her breath to add to the effect; passing many empty, or nearly empty, compartments along the way.

People stared and giggled as she past, pointing fingers and whispering among themselves. She didn't look at them, and she paid them no attention. She just continued her slow walk down the train; watching her feet all the way.

When she got to the very, very back, there was an empty compartment in which she went into and took her place. She continued to watch the ground, listening to the cheerful talk from the compartments around her as old students meet with old friends, and new students meet new ones.

She didn't fell lonely, she seldom ever did. She wasn't worried about being alone or avoided. She personally liked it better that way anyway. She never had friends in the muggle world, she had always been considered strange and not normal, not worthy of being a friend. She figured it would all be the same here as well, and matters went helped much when she had over heard the doctor at St. Mungos say that what happened to her wasn't even normal on wizard standards. Yes, she liked it alone. There was less humiliation that way.

"Excuse me?" A small voice came from the door. Maria looked up and saw a medium height, thin girl with long, straight black hair and dark, almost black, brown eyes. Her skin was extremely pale, almost like she had never been out in the sun before, and her lips thin and light airbrushed pink. "May I sit here?"

"Sure." Maria nodded for her to come in.

"Are you a first year?" The girl asked, taking a seat across from Maria.

"Yes."

"So am I." The girl looked to the floor then looked back up. "What's your name?"

"Maria. And your's?"

"Hana." There was a long silence where neither of them knew what to say. Hana looked out the window, and Maria studied the floor.

There was a knock at the door. "Yes?" Maria asked in response.

The door slid open to reveal a young boy and girl. The boy was tall, thin and blond with gray/blue eyes. The girl was similar in size, but several inches shorter. She had long brown hair that fell over her shoulders; her eyes were also brown.

"Yes?" Maria asked again.

"Just looking." Then he turned out into the hallway and shouted, "I found her, the girl who didn't want to come."

Two other boys and another girl appeared in the compartment doorway. The boys both had short black hair, one with brown eyes, and another with blue. The girl had long blond hair and blue/green eyes.

"That is her!" One of the boys with black hair and brown eyes said, slapping the blond haired boy on the back. "Nice work John!"

"Well, what do we do now?" The blond haired girl asked.

"Lets see here..." The boy called John seemed to ponder the possibilities. "Let's soak her." The other children nodded in agreement.

All of them raised their wands, as Maria sat and watched them, her expression unchanging. She fingered her hand at her side, but none of them saw it. As John whispered a spell, Maria rose her wand and backfired their spell, causing them to be covered head to toe with water.

Maria rose and took a few steps to the doorway. "You can go now." And with that she slid shut the door in their faces and locked it.

She turned and once again took her seat next to the window facing Hana, who stared at her gaping.

"What?" Maria asked her.

"You can already do magic?!" Hana exclaimed amazed.

Maria shrugged. "So what? So could they."

"But when did you learn?"

"I didn't. I guess I already knew." That statement caused Hana to be even more amazed.

Maria couldn't see anything wrong with Hana, so she decided that she may give being friends with her a try. Hana could potently be her first true friend, she liked the vibes she gave off, and they seemed nothing but friendly. Maybe this year wouldn't be so bad after all.


End file.
